Tal alternated between sitting and standing near the place where the bridge of broken glass had once been. There were fragments of it still left behind, but not enough to even hint at the structure that used to be there. The builders of Spire had shown him the plans they’d drawn up for the bridge. Their use of temporary cantilevers, support wires, and sub-assemblies were ingenious ideas that no one in Peak had ever thought of before. However, the builders in Spire rarely took into consideration the foundations of their buildings. The ground here was much firmer than it was in Peak and Tal figured that that was why they’d never developed those concepts. Their buildings would sit on the ground for years before any noticeable settling would begin to cause problems. Rather than figure out the reason for the settling or mitigate it, they would tear down the failing structure and build something else in its place.

Glass was not a new building material for Spire. They’d used it in windows for years, just like Peak, but the windows were never structural elements. There were now a handful of buildings made nearly entirely of glass in Spire and they were marvelous indeed. The newer ones had panels tinted different colors, and they’d even begun experimenting with glass that would change hue and transparency depending on the temperature. The glass they’d used for the bridge was one of their strongest types of glass. The main drawback to it was that they couldn’t shape it very easily. To overcome that problem, they broke the pieces of glass and then filed them into their final shapes, wedging them together, piece by piece. They’d build a section of the bridge, then carry it down to the main construction site and it would be added to the bridge. The pieces were so perfectly fitted that there hadn’t been any need for an adhesive or other means of attaching them beyond the joints where the individual sections were connected.

Tal had been so distracted when he’d crossed the bridge that he’d failed to notice those connection points. Even if he had noticed them, they wouldn’t have been much to see. A few lengths of forged metal, set in each piece to hold the sections together.

Even with the understanding that he’d gained over the last couple of days, it still seemed an impossible feat they had accomplished. One wrong step, one misaligned shard of glass, and the entire thing would have collapsed beneath them.

“Feeling homesick?” a voice asked from behind Tal.

He turned and was surprised to find the ruler from Peak standing there. Immediately Tal began to worry, regretting that he’d come alone. Had the ruler come to exact revenge on Tal?

“Relax,” the ruler said, although his tone was none too friendly. As if to prove he meant no harm, he took several steps away from Tal and the path leading back up to Spire and then sat down on the ground. “I just needed to get away from them for a while, hear someone talk without having another person saying the exact same thing at the exact same time.”

Tal could relate to that. He’d mostly gotten over the shock of Spire’s oddities, but it was still hard not to want to be able to speak to just one person and not have to worry about which one of the two he was actually speaking to.

“Have they put you to work?” the ruler asked.

Tal didn’t like the insinuation that Spire was forcing him to work for them.

“They’ve asked me to help them with some projects,” Tal said, “but I haven’t decided on any of them yet.”

“ Hmph,” the ruler huffed and turned his eyes towards the direction of Peak.

The clouds had settled back down into their usual place and so nothing could be seen of their old homeland.

“Do you wonder what they’re doing now?” Tal asked. “You think they’re just building again like we always did?”

“They might,” the ruler sighed. “What does it matter now, though? We’re never going back there and they’ll be dead before too long. Once the food becomes scarce, they’ll turn on each other.”

“Do they really only have a year left?”

“Less than a year. A few months at best.”

“I thought you’d said–

“I don’t know the exact amount of time they have!” he snapped at Tal. “I told them,” he waved a hand up towards Spire, “that they had a year because it was an easy time frame. I know that no one in Peak will be alive by then, but I expect they’ll be dead sooner rather than later.”

“Shouldn’t we try and help them?” Tal asked. It was something he’d been wondering about ever since he’d learned of the impending doom that hung over Peak and its people.

“There’s nothing we can do for them.”

“What if the bridge was rebuilt?”

“And then what?” the ruler demanded. “Do you think they would just let Spire walk on over? Do you think Peak would fail in setting up some sort of patrol to watch for any more attempts by Spire to make contact? No, the moment they see Spire coming, the rocks will start to fly.”

That was what worried Tal as well, and why he hadn’t immediately agreed to help Spire rebuild the bridge. Peak was so convinced that Spire was their enemy that any sort of aid would be seen as a cloak for something nefarious.

“Have you noticed,” the ruler asked, his tone much more conversational now, “how no one here has a name?”

Tal frowned. He hadn’t noticed, but neither had he asked anyone their name. Come to think of it, no one had asked him for his name either.

“I think it has something to do with the way the speak in tandem,” the ruler went on. “I’ve never heard them speak to one another, only to you and me. When I’ve seen them working they seem to know what everyone else in their group would say and so never actually speak.”

“It’s something to do with their bond,” Tal said, wanting to contribute something to the conversation but not known what else to say. He hadn’t asked about the bond ever since they’d told him of its existence.

“What do you mean?” the ruler asked. “You think they know one another so well that they don’t need to speak?”

“No, I mean,” Tal trailed off. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to talk about the bond or not. They hadn’t told him not to, but they also seemed to be guarding the specifics as though it were a fairly private matter.

The ruler sat up a bit straighter, his interest piqued and Tal cast around for something else to talk about.

“I’m Tal,” he said at last. “What’s your name?”

The ruler narrowed his eyes slightly, obviously noticing Tal’s inexpert change in subject but he let it go all the same.

“I am Dega,” he said. “There used to be a series of epithets that went along with my name but, as Spire has so kindly pointed out a number of times, those don’t matter over here.”

“Have they given you things to work on?” Tal asked, still trying to keep the conversation going while moving further away from discussing the bond.

“They have me cataloging and organizing their exports and imports,” Dega murmured as though he found the entire business beneath him. “In Peak, we never traded with anyone. Always too busy trying to outdo Spire. Foolish, really, but it was all any of us had ever known.”

“Does Spire do a lot of trading?”

“Oh, not too much,” Dega replied. “The climb from the valley to Spire is a difficult one, but many of Spire’s crops are unique and won’t grow down below. As a result, harvest season can be a bit of a hassle for Spire since many of the lower regions pay a fair bit for that produce. That is also how Spire affords most of their building materials, too.”

“When’s the next harvest?”

“Pretty soon, maybe a month or so.”

“Did Peak ever trade with the people in the valley?” Tal asked, a new idea forming in his mind.

“I believe so,” Dega said, a curious look on his face as he rubbed his chin. “There are paths, overgrown and disused, leading down from Peak, but I’ve never known of anyone using them and there’s no record of them either.”

“Then why do you think Peak used to trade with others, if there’s no record or anything?”

“For one thing, we weren’t plunked down over there by the gods. We had to have come from somewhere. Secondly, if no one had ever gone down and mingled with other people, how would he have know about Spire?”

“But we can see Spire.”

“True, but how did we know it was called Spire?”

It seemed obvious now that Dega had said it. How was it that so many seemingly obvious things were so hard to notice before someone said it out loud? Tal looked back towards the clouds obscuring Peak. He felt lucky that he’d been able to leave Peak, knowing now what would have awaited him had he stayed. Yet at the same time he felt guilty for escaping. What right did he have to avoid their fate? He didn’t feel like he deserved to be rescued when there were so many others who might have just as easily been in his place.

“You seem upset,” Dega observed.

“It just doesn’t seem right,” Tal said, “that we’re the only ones who got to leave Peak.”

“Listen,” Dega said with his all-too-familiar bite of impatience, “we got out because we were better than them. We were smarter than them. We were the ones who took the initiative, not them. You don’t owe them anything so stop wasting your time and energy worrying about them.”

Tal stiffened. Dega had always seemed disconnected with other people, but the coldness and dismissive tones in his voice sickened Tal. He disagreed with Dega’s reasoning, but more than that, he didn’t accept it as a viable excuse not to care, even if Dega was right about them being smarter or better or whatever.

“You’re wrong,” Tal said plainly as he began making his way back up to Spire. “If there’s anything we can do to save them, we should do it. No one deserves the death we’ve left them to suffer.”

He didn’t look back and Dega didn’t respond. Tal doubted very much that he had convinced Dega, but at the very least Tal had stood his ground. He was beginning to accept that Dega was no longer his ruler and that newfound perspective was beginning to clear away his old biases and fears. Here in Spire, Tal had power and if he could use it to rescue his homeland, so much the better.